to think more of my charisma

I think I have a few problems with conversational skills. Those may come from my limit of confidence, or from my characteristics, but at least I know and admit them. It's a good beginning to improve myself, isn't it?

I found this article tonight which I think is informative and inspirational for me to find a few resource to read more. Even before doing any further reading, the article itself reminds me very clearly a few basic principles to be a good conversationist:

http://www.economist.com/node/8345491?fsrc=scn/fb/te/pe/ed/chatteringclasses

A few paragraphs that I'm really keen on:
"The basic skills brought to the table were expected to include politesse (sincere good manners), esprit (wit), galanterie (gallantry), complaisance (obligingness), enjouement(cheerfulness) and flatterie. More specific techniques would be required as the conversation took flight. A comic mood would require displays of raillerie (playful teasing), plaisanterie(joking), bons mots (epigrams), traits and pointes (rhetorical figures involving “subtle, unexpected wit”, according to Benedetta Craveri, a historian of the period), and, later,persiflage (mocking under the guise of praising). Even silences had to be finely judged. The Duc de La Rochefoucauld distinguished between an “eloquent” silence, a “mocking” silence and a “respectful” silence. The mastery of such “airs and tones”, he said, was “granted to few”." - this really makes conversation an genre of art!

"Johnson was far from the only Englishman to have matched a love of conversation with a reputation for occasional difficult silences. As he himself said: “A Frenchman must always be talking, whether he knows anything of the matter or not; an Englishman is content when he has nothing to say.” In his book “Democracy in America”, Alexis de Tocqueville refers to the “strange unsociability and reserved and taciturn disposition of the English”. But for Charles Dickens, another foreign visitor to America in the 19th century, it was the Americans who seemed taciturn. He blamed this on a “love of trade”, which limited men's interests and made them reluctant to volunteer information for fear of tipping their hand to a competitor. The idealisation of silence remained strong in American culture into the 20th century: think of the laconic heroes of Western films, or of Hemingway's novels."

"More recently it has been neither trade nor taciturnity, but the distractions of technology, which have seemed to threaten the quality of conversation" - sounds familiar today with the smart devices, doesn't it? 

Well, I bet after this reading my conversation skill has improved 1%. A positive result!